Ariel Artists Welcomes Jenny Q Chai!

We are thrilled to welcome the sensational young performing artist and pianist Jenny Q Chai to the Ariel Artists roster!  Breaking the boundaries of what constitutes a “concert pianist,” Jenny Q Chai combines her formidable performance visions with electronics, projected images, multimedia, and elements of theater to create entire worlds of experience, or as she calls them, “fairy tales for grown-ups.”

Ms. Chai’s uniquely curated programs feature a wide range of music – from Beethoven, Schumann, and Debussy through Cage, Ligeti, Marco Stroppa, and Nils Vigeland – combining music of the past and the present in radical ways that unlock and expand each element, forge connections, and transcend time and genre.  All of her performances are marked by her adventurous spirit, abounding wonder, and a radiant joy which she brings to every note and gesture.

Recently having made her Carnegie Hall debut at Zankel Hall, Jenny Q Chai was praised by the New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini for her “resourceful technique and sensitivity” as well as playing that is “admirable for its refinement and directness.”  In addition to her Carnegie Hall debut, Jenny has played at New York venues such as (le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette, Symphony Space, and the Stone, and recently made her Chicago debut playing Schumann’s Kreisleriana at the Dame Myra Hess Series.

In addition to her performance career, Jenny Q Chai is the founder and president of FaceArt Music InterNations in Shanghai, CHINA, a contemporary performance space, educational center, and cultural exchange organization dedicated to contemporary music.  Ms. Chai played the first contemporary solo piano concert in China last June at the National Performing Arts Center in Beijing; and she recently had the privilege of introducing the concept of prepared piano to a Chinese audience, with the world premiere of Mallet Dance by John Slover in Shanghai Concert Hall.  Splitting her time between New York City and Shanghai, Ms. Chai also serves on the Board of Directors for the New York City-based contemporary music organization Ear to Mind.

We’re extremely excited to see what the coming year brings for the phenomenal work of Jenny Q Chai.  She is already underway with a major recording project of the piano works of Nils Vigeland for Naxos Records, and has several more spectacular projects to be unveiled over the course of the coming season!  Welcome, Jenny!!

Ariel Artists Welcomes Violinist Francesca Anderegg

Violinist Francesca Anderegg joined Ariel Artists this May, bringing with her a deep passion for contemporary and traditional classical music and an impressive history of respected solo work and collaborations.

Praised for her “rich tone” and “virtuosic panache” by the New York Times and commended for her “astonishing assurance” by the Chicago Sun-Times, the young musician is already well recognized as a rising star in the contemporary classical world.

Anderegg’s New York debut was in 2007, when she performed the Ligeti Violin Concerto with the Julliard Orchestra. The New York Times lauded this performance for its “dark, mournful tone”. Anderegg often serves as the concertmaster of contemporary music ensemble AXIOM, and with them led the Miller Theatre’s performance of Elliott Carter’s opera “What Next?,” winning a place on Time Out New York’s top ten classical music events list for 2007.

Based in Minnesota, Anderegg travels frequently and is an active participant in the New York City music scene. She celebrated her Carnegie Hall debut in 2008, performing in Weill Recital Hall as a participant in the Carnegie Hall Professional Training Workshop series with Pamela and Claude Frank. She also regularly performs with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and has appeared at major classical venues throughout the city and the United States, as both a soloist and a chamber musician.

Anderegg’s contemporary music performances have also led to impressive collaborations with leading classical musicians in both the United States and Europe. At the Lucerne Festival in 2009, she performed Pierre Boulez’s “Anthèmes II” for Solo Violin and Electronics in collaboration with the Paris-based IRCAM studio. At the Lucerne Festival, she has had leading roles in works by Tristain Murail, Bruno Mantovani, Ivan Fedele, and Kaija Saariaho. At New York’s (le) poisson rouge, she has performed works by John Adams and Magnus Lindberg in concerts attended by the composers.

Anderegg holds a BA from Harvard University, as well as Master’s and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from The Juilliard School, where she worked with Ronald Copes. Her former teachers have included Robert Mann, Naoko Tanaka, Lynn Chang, and Betty-Jean Hagen. In 2010, Anderegg was awarded the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing Arts, a major career grant. Her solo debut CD, containing music by Elliott Carter, George Perle, and Arnold Schoenberg, was released by Albany Records in July 2012. She is on the violin faculty of Interlochen Arts Camp, and is Assistant Professor of Violin at St. Olaf College.

Ariel Artists is honored to be working with Anderegg, and we encourage you to visit the website for exciting news and performance dates as our 2013-2014 events calendar grows!

Meehan/Perkins Duo Gears Up for Busy Spring Performance Season, Celebrates Tristan Perich Premiere

Energized by the momentum of their many impressive achievements this past summer and fall, the Meehan/Perkins Duo will be offering a packed spring schedule of one-of-a-kind performances, symposia, and collaborations.

After the summer 2012 premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff‘s Concerto for Two Percussionists and Orchestra with the Round Top Festival Orchestra, Todd Meehan and Doug Perkins announced that they were the proud recipients of a generous Chamber Music America (CMA) grant for a new piece from renowned electro-acoustic composer Tristan Perich as well as a coveted grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation for their performance at Mexico’s Visiones Sonoras Festival this past October.

This coming Saturday, January 19, the Duo will head north to Duluth, Minnesota for a second performance of the Leshnoff concerto, this time led by conductor Dirk Meyer with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. Writing about the piece after its premiere, The Washington Post remarked that Leshnoff “thinks big, and with its twin virtues of accessibility and architectural coherence, you come away from the concerto feeling that you’ve heard something pleasantly significant.” A video of the concerto’s breathtaking first movement, as played at Round Top, appears below, and the second and third movements can be found on the Meehan/Perkins Duo Vimeo page.

On March 1 and 2, Todd and Doug will visit Waco, Texas for the 2013 Baylor Percussion Symposium, where they will join forces with their old bandmates, So Percussion, for a performance of Iannis Xenakis’ epic Pleiades. The two-day event was organized by Todd, who in addition to his work with Meehan/Perkins Duo is the Baylor Percussion Director, and will also feature talks and masterclasses focused on the music of Iannis Xenakis and Paul Lansky.

Following their visit to Baylor, the Duo will head to the 2013 Fast Forward Austin Festival to premiere Tristan Perich’s new 50-minute work for percussion duo and 1 bit electronics at the always-hip Fast Forward Austin Fest (made possible by the receipt of the CMA grant this past fall).

Finally, on June 16 and 17, the Duo will join Alarm Will Sound and the JACK Quartet as part of the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series for a two-night concert event featuring the works of Pulitzer Prize winning composer Steve Reich. The Duo will perform Reich’s Nagoya Marimbas, a classic in the percussion duo repertoire.

Don’t miss these exciting performances and other offerings of this gifted percussion duo!

Read more about Meehan/Perkins Duo.

Read more about Ariel Artists’ upcoming events.

Blair McMillen: Innovative and Exciting Spring Events to Follow a Highly Successful Fall

Blair McMillen, one of the newest additions to our roster, is following up his remarkable inaugural season as an Ariel Artist with a spate of exciting new spring events and performances, building momentum towards an impressive fine for the 2012-2013 year.

Blair’s fall schedule included a sold-out performance as a soloist with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and a more intimate engagement at Manhattan’s (le) Poisson Rouge as part of piano supergroup Grand Band. This latter performance resulted in a memorable quip by the New York Times’s Zachary Woolfe, who noted “Grand Band is verily – and I don’t say this lightly – the Traveling Wilburys of New York’s new-music scene.”

This coming Tuesday, January 15, Blair will return with Grand Band to (le) Poisson Rouge, joining Vicky Chow, David Friend, Paul Kerekes, Lisa Moore, and Isabelle O’Connell to play Simeon ten Holt’s “Canto Ostinato” on six keyboards. The piece, considered by many to be the recently-deceased Dutch composer’s magnum opus, is written to accommodate a variable number of keyboard instruments, and it has an unusual degree of openness in its articulation, leaving many elements of the piece to be brought to life by the imaginations and personalities of the artists performing it.

Also this spring, Blair will be working in collaboration with longtime duo partner and acclaimed violinist Miranda Cuckson in several performances and to create pair of recordings. Among the most exciting of these is the new Library of Congress McKim Fund commission of Harold Meltzer’s “Kreisleriana,” which had its world premiere at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. last year. At this 2012 premiere, Cuckson performed on Fritz Kreisler’s very own touring Stradivarius violin, permanently housed in the Library’s collection. Harold Meltzer has recently been revising and adding on to the piece. Blair and Miranda will be performing the new, expanded version on the water beneath the Brooklyn Bridge at the one-of-a-kind Bargemusic, among other venues, this coming February 15. This spring the duo will also perform and record the works of Jason Eckardt, Elliott Carter, and others.

On April 17 and 18, Blair will be performing at Lincoln Center in Ives’ 4th Symphony with the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert, and Joshua Bell. Later that month, Blair will return to (le) Poisson Rouge on April 29 to perform “Chiaroscuro” with fellow pianist Stephen Gosling in the John Corigliano 75th Birthday Celebration. “Chiaroscuro” was written for two pianos tuned one-quarter step apart, and the piece is the opening track on Blair’s critically-acclaimed 2009 recording “Multiplicities.”

Blair’s other performances and engagements for the spring season include appearances at PianoForte Foundation, the University of Chicago, Illinois State University, Vassar College, Amherst College, the Dimenna Center, Columbia University, and concerts with the Albany Symphony, the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Be sure to mark your calendar for one or more of these remarkable upcoming performances by an artist The New York Times has described as “prodigiously accomplished and exciting,” and one of the piano’s “brilliant young stars.”

Explore other upcoming Ariel Artists events.

Learn more about Blair McMillen.

West Shore Piano Trio and DancEthos Celebrate Premiere of “The Divide” and Contemplate Additional Collaborations

West Shore Piano Trio’s groundbreaking “200 Years of Women Composers” program, offered for the 2013/2014 season, is a celebration of female composers from the past two centuries. One program work in particular, Rebecca Clarke’s 1921 composition Piano Trio, has become the music behind “The Divide,” a new collaboration with Washington, D.C. dance company DancEthos. “The Divide” was choreographed by DancEthos Artistic Director and Founder Tiffany Haughn (also the sister of West Short Piano Trio’s violinist Heather Haughn) and premiered at Washington, D.C.’s Dance Place November 10 and 11, with additional live performances scheduled in 2013.

Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio, already a masterpiece in its own right, achieves a special resonance when combined with the movement of human bodies. Tiffany Haughn was inspired by the piece to explore gender biases in modern society, and so began an utterly kinetic collaboration between the two groups of artists. The three-part dance piece uses the lush and volatile soundscapes of Clarke’s piece to heighten the choreography’s own sense of passion, challenge, and exploration, depicting a world with no gender bias juxtaposed with the reality of gender differences, communication barriers between genders, and gender stereotypes and the impact of gender role reversals.

After the November premiere, the collaboration proved so successful that both groups are currently brainstorming ideas for a full concert collaboration in upcoming seasons –  sure to be an amazing performance!

The next performance of “The Divide” will take place at the Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival in Washington D.C. on February 23. The work is part of DancEthos’ larger Voice(s) program and will be performed alongside two other pieces, “Voice(s) on the Hook” and “Listen”.

Clarke’s Piano Trio is but one of several remarkable pieces that West Shore Piano Trio is offering as part of the “200 Years of Women Composers” program; others include Stacy Garrop’s Seven for piano trio (1997-1998), Louise Farrenc’s Piano Trio in E_b, Op. 33 (1850-1855), and Jennifer Higdon’s Piano Trio (2003).

We urge you to take advantage of every opportunity to see these talented artists at work!

Attend “The Divide” on February 23.

janus trio to Premiere New Paul Lansky Commission

The rush of exciting premieres continues on the Ariel Artist roster as janus trio takes the stage at Princeton University tonight to unveil their newly commissioned work from composer Paul Lansky, “Book of Memory.” Using William Blake’s poem “Song: Memory, hither come” as his text, incorporating singing as well as percussive elements, and making use of very traditional harmonic and contrapuntal language, Lansky creates a piece that is as much a look back as it is a look forward, and a perfect fit for the similarly double-facing Roman god Janus, after whom the janus trio takes their name. The group received a commission grant for the piece last year from Chamber Music America.

Also on the program will be a revised edition of Cenk Ergün‘s (pictured above) piece “An,” also written for janus. The composer shares the following insight into this 2005 commission: “The essence of the piece lies in the minute differences between each sound produced by each instrument. The differences are magnified by use of minimal musical material placed sparsely in time. These deceivingly similar events of sound stand in time like a school of fish does in water, each fish a unique entity when examined closely.”

All in all, another amazing evening of music!

Oni Buchanan Premieres ‘Uncanny Valley’

This fall marked the first-ever performance of John Gibson’s “Uncanny Valley“ from Oni Buchanan and poet Jon Woodward! The work, detailed here and here, sets to piano and electronics shards of Woodward’s fractured, serial, and apocalyptic work of the same name. The two traveled to the University of Michigan to perform the piece as part of the school’s Zell Visiting Writers Series.  Gibson was also in attendance, and all three took questions in a short Q&A after the performance.

While in Ann Arbor, Jon and Oni also gave a poetry reading with Benjamin Paloff at METAL (a working metal shop and art space) as part of One Pause Poetry.  The next morning, they took part in a roundtable discussion along with poets Paloff and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith, set among the plants of Pot & Box garden shop.  Other highlights of Ann Arbor included patronizing restaurants with alternating consonant/vowel patterns (Seva’s, Lena’s, and Sava’s, in particular), and meeting the goats at White Lotus Farms.

In Holland, Mich., home of Hope College and De Zwaan, they visited a working Dutch windmill which they were fortunate enough to tour with organist and fellow Ariel Artist roster member Rhonda Sider Edgington and her two-year-old daughter, Esther, who did a fabulous impromptu dance to the street organ music.  Jon and Oni performed “Uncanny Valley” in the Knickerbocker Theater, whose marquee welcomed them to town as they rolled in on Main Street.

At Hope, Jon and Oni also took part in Q&A sessions and lectures and enjoyed both formal and informal discussions with students, including a run-down of the vast Tulip Time festival as well as the ever-evolving law enforcement strategies and fines concerning picking or accidentally knocking over tulips during Tulip Time.

After their fascinating time in Holland, Oni and Jon continued onward to Saginaw Valley State University, where they visited an advanced poetry class and performed the next night in the Founders Hall, again with the performance followed by a Q&A where the audience offered both their questions and their responses to the performance.

All in all, it was an extremely fun world premiere tour. They’re looking forward to going back out on the road from January through April, taking “Uncanny Valley” to Illinois (in a quickly approaching residency at Wheaton College), Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, California, and Nebraska, as well as into the recording studio.

Guidonian Hand Wins ACF Jerome Fund Grant for Jeremy Howard Beck Piece!

Completing a stunning year for the Guidonian Hand, the American Composers Forum has recently awarded the trombone quartet a grant to fund the commissioning of another brand new piece from the great composer Jeremy Howard Beck.  This makes the group three for three on grants they’ve applied to this year!

Beck composed one of the group’s signature works recently, the deeply moving “Awakening,” and the current grant will go toward his composing of yet another groundbreaking piece for them. Guidonian Hand’s “State of the Art” program continues to push boundaries with its works from contemporary composers such as Beck, Conrad Winslow, Eve Beglarian, Galen Brown, and more.

Travels with Rhonda, Fall 2012 Edition!

Our latest report from the ever-curious Rhonda Sider Edgington finds the incredible organist playing host to a number of fun developments in the world of pipes and stops.  Edgington, who performs next month in Chicago at the Holy Name Cathedral, left her home in Holland, Michigan to visit the big city environs of Lansing for this year’s American Institute of Organbuilders annual conference (next year marks the organization’s 40th conference!).

Afterwards, she hosted close friend and organbuilder John Boody (of Taylor and Boody Organs) back in Holland.  Says Edgington: ‘The kids and I took him to see Windmill Island.  He enjoyed explaining to my ever curious son how the windmill works, and was impressed with our authentic Dutch street organ, which he said was ‘a good one.’”

But perhaps the biggest news of all is the Edgington is about to attend her first rock concert ever next week — Bob Dylan in Grand Rapids, thanks to birthday tickets from her husband and his parents!

An organ fiend could do worse for a first dip into the rock world.  After all, where would Dylan be without Al Kooper’s skills (or self-professed lack thereof) on the Hammond organ?

Blair McMillen with the ASO at Carnegie!

An empire-sized extravaganza is planned for Friday night at Carnegie Hall as famed American Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 50th Anniversary in a concert designed to revisit some of the group’s finest moments. Ariel Artists’ Blair McMillen will join the proceedings on piano along with sopranos Rebecca Davis, Abbie Furmansky, Katherine Whyte, and more, plus the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and the Collegiate Chorale.

Ticket prices for the event are being rolled back to “1962″ prices, ranging from $1.50 to $7.

The program will include Charles Ives’s 4th (which the ASO debuted at Carnegie in 1965), Mahler’s 8th (which the ASO gave an unforgettable performance at Bard in 2002), and the first piece the orchestra ever performed – founder Leopold Stokowski’s arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Stokowski was 80 when he formed the orchestra and did so under the mission of showcasing great American musicians through “concerts of great music within the means of everyone.” And yes – the Empire State Building itself will be lit red and white in honor of this golden anniversary.

Get full information and tickets at the ASO’s event page!